


He Knows Me

by Nitramoron



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, angst omg, some sadstuck parts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:30:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitramoron/pseuds/Nitramoron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John and Dave develop feelings, and Nitra is bad at summaries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

I remember when I discovered I was gay. I was in fourth grade, just getting over the “cooties” problem and falling under the impression that one boy (whose name I’ve long since forgotten) was god’s gift to the planet. I thought I was in love with him, and he was my short-lived best friend. I kissed him on the playground one early spring day, and the way he stared at me after pushing me to the ground I will never forget. He found my crimson-colored irises through my shades —something that completely shocked me; no one but Bro could do that!— and gave me such a look of pure horror that I cringed and tears were brought to my eyes.   
“What are you doing?! You’re not a girl!” he said in his fourth-grader voice, still staring at me like I was pureeing kittens before his very eyes.   
“I love you!” I had whined, my face the epitome of adoration and heartbreak, I’m sure.   
“You’re icky! I hate you!” the boy had screamed, and the teacher who saw me kiss him finally arrived and dragged me off the ground and back into the school by my arm furiously. He screamed at me that what I did was wrong and put me into lunchtime detention. About ten minutes later I heard someone screaming, and my Bro threw open the door to the classroom I was being held in. Although he had on his ever-present poker face, I could tell he was angry by the tense way he moved. The school’s secretary was behind him, yelling at him about how he was intruding in the school and shouldn’t be there. He ran forward, scooped me up, and stormed us out of the school, buckling me into his rusty orange truck and sitting in his own seat for a moment in complete silence, his knuckles white from how hard he was holding the steering wheel. He dropped his head into his lap for a second then slid his anime shades up before turning to look at me.   
“Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it’s bad being different, Dave. There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing, you hear me?” he said in his deep voice, his orange gaze burning into my red one. I was afraid—Bro never said anything like this.   
“Yeah,” I said in a small voice, eyes darting away from his gaze.   
We were in a different part of the country by morning and I never let anyone see my emotions again.   
That is, until I met John Egbert.   
I found John online when I was thirteen and full of irony, frequenting a forum focusing on horrid movies and actors (Nic Cage, Matthew McCaughnahey, etc.) to make fun of the idiots who seemed to actually enjoy the movies too bad to even be ironic. The only boy who brushed off my insults with good humor and continued fighting for the sake of his idiotic films went by the screen name “ectoBiologist” and caught my interest pretty quickly, leading to me sending him a private message. A few quick messages a day quickly turned into several texts a day and then several more and a phone call per day and then we were talking constantly, telling each other everything and anything. I was kind of shocked to find myself so close to that boy I originally thought was a flaming fucking moron, but he dealt with my irony that some could say was overwhelming.   
John soon became the only person I could trust, the person I loved more than life itself. I would do anything for him, and he would do anything for me. He lived halfway across the country, but I almost didn’t mind. The both of us had enough technology to make it feel as though we were never apart.   
It’s a bit of a mystery as to why we got along so well. Our friend Rose mused that our personalities are so different that they brought us together (I’m a “stand-offish, snarky ass” and he’s an “adorable, loving cutie.”) and our differences brought us together. I think it’s just because no one could hate John Egbert.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which something bad happens, and Dave Strider loses his cool.

— turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 20:47 —   
TG: yo   
EB: dave! how are you?   
TG: fine   
TG: so sicknasty it should be illegal   
TG: watch out egbert theyre going to take me away   
TG: im taking up all the okay in the world   
EB: daaaaaaaave.   
EB: im your best friend,   
EB: i know when somethings wrong. that wasnt even ironic at all dave. it was barely even a metaphor! come onnnnnnnn!   
TG: god damnit egbert stop knowing me so well   
TG: its unnerving   
EB: out with it. 

Well, I guess I can tell him.. he is my best bro, after all. 

TG: its bro   
EB: yes?   
TG: he hasnt been home in four days   
TG: thats a long time even for him   
EB: where did he go?   
TG: he had a gig a few towns over   
TG: never came back   
EB: what do you think hes doing? 

I lay my fingertips on the touchscreen keyboard of my iPhone and start to type a response when there’s a knock on the door. I immediately think its Bro, despite the fact that he would never knock on the door, even if it was locked. He’d just yell an extremely ironic “HONEY I’M HOOOOME!” and expect me to open the door, which I would. Bastard.   
TG: brb theres someone at the door   
TG: probably that stupid fuck coming back from being hungover by a lake somewhere 

I straighten myself up from my slumped-over position, sliding my shades on over my blood-red eyes and walk to answer the door, iPhone still in hand.   
“Where were you fucknut? This better be seriously good becaus—“ I stop talking as I open the door and there’s a police officer on the other side, looking grim. “What do you want?”   
“David Strider?”   
“Yes.” I snap, trying to keep my face impassive. My voice betrays me, cracking on that single syllable. “What is it?”   
“I have some bad news…” he says.   
My grip goes limp and I drop my phone, my body crumpling, broken, to the floor.   
I’m standing in the rain in the cemetery as they lower his coffin into the fucking ground, decked out in my fucking finest black fucking suit and my goddamn wingtips. I refused to take off the black aviators John got me a few years back, and behind them my face is a mask of put-together indifference. John is next to me, sobbing wildly and rubbing circles on my back as if I’m the one who needs consoled with one hand and holding a duck-printed umbrella over us with the other.   
The day has been long and I’m just tired of all these little shits who’ve never given a single fuck about me or my brother before today sobbing like they just lost their fucking god and acting as if I’m their own kid. I’m tired of hearing “son, I’m always here for you,” “oh my god, DAVE. You know I can help you through this baby. Call me!” and “David, you can come to me for anything,” every five minutes from complete strangers. My name isn’t even David. These attention-seeking cocksuckers don’t even know my god damn name. People who fucked Bro one night after one of his gigs, or he called to switch shifts with, or even people who only know him from hearing his story on the news think they have a right to be at his funeral when they don’t. They have no fucking right. It’s like the guy keels over and the media shows a slight bit of interest so everyone’s his best friend and “there for me.” I’m sick of it. Completely fucking fed up. It’s all I can do to grit my teeth and nod as they ruffle my golden-blonde hair to prevent myself from screaming my lungs out at these goddamn posers. I hate them. I hate Bro for leaving me. I hate myself for letting him. I hate my parents for dying and leaving me with no one else to go to—I mean, I love the fucking Egberts, but I’m only sixteen; I need family. I hate the police for not knowing what the hell killed him.   
They don’t even know what the fuck killed him. There was no obvious cause of death. Bro was a healthy, normal—if slightly strange in his puppet obsession and love for animes—twenty-eight year old man. They found him out behind the club he performed at that night just lying on the cement. A few workers going back to smoke thought he was a club-patron who just passed out. Apparently it happens quite often, but the point is there is no way he should be dead. 

 

When the cops brought me in to identify him the day they found him, four days after his suspected time of death, he looked fine. A little blue, perhaps, but fine otherwise. He was the only body in the morgue that day, and he was already lying out in his little fucking locker covered in a white fucking sheet when the officials led me into the room. I walked up to him collectedly, praying inside that it wouldn’t actually be him and he was at home laughing his ass off at me being so gullible, telling Lil Cal how good he got me.   
It was him, alright, I thought as I studied him. He was naked, covered only with that thin white sheet. His hair, the exact color of mine, wasn’t spiked like it usually was—they must have washed it. It was down almost to his shoulders, curling slightly at the edges around his long neck. They took his various earrings out, I noted. I studied all the scars on his broad chest, most of which caused by me during our sparring sessions. I ran my fingers over the tattoo inked into his cool skin absently, my mouth pressed into a hard line. He looked so peaceful in death, I thought. His face was relaxed and calm, his mouth slack and slightly downturned naturally. My gaze traveled up to his eyes, closed and innocent-looking. His long blonde lashes rested against his cheek, upturned slightly.   
Wait… I can see his eyes, I had thought. Then it hit me. I could see his eyes.   
I was calm and composed until I realized they took his shades off—that’s when I lost it.   
He never took his shades off in life. Fucker even slept with them on—he probably showered with them too. The fact that he wasn’t wearing his shades is what really made it sink in—my brother was dead. I would never speak to him again. He would never set another booby trap in our small apartment. He would never flashstep right behind me as swords rained down on me from the cereal cupboard, leaning against the granite countertop and smirking at me as fury built in me. He would never ambush me and almost push me off the roof in a strife. He would never do anything again.   
“HIS SHADES.” I had screamed, taking my own off and ignoring the gasps of the coroner and the other random suits with her as they noticed my blood red eyes. “WHERE ARE HIS SHADES?” I bellowed, and the coroner whispered something to the man beside her. He rushed off through a nondescript chrome door and returned a moment later with Bro’s black anime shades. I snatched them out of his grubby little hands and clutched them to my leather coat-clad chest, sliding along the metal body compartments and to the floor. I curled into a ball around the shades, rare tears flowing out of my eyes. Sobs shook my body as I stood a while later, ignoring the shocked people beside me as I turn to his body, studying him In front of me was my brother, the man that was with me always throughout the sixteen years of my life, the man who sacrificed so much for so long to ensure that I had the best life possible. He took me in when he was only fifteen, dropping out of school entirely and using his college funds to buy us some food and start up a website, which eventually kicked up and let us get by. When I got a little older, he took on a few more part time jobs (at one point he ran his damned puppet website, DJ’d at a popular club downtown every night, delivered pizza every night, and was the cashier at a hobby shop all day at the same time) to give me everything I wanted. Sure, he wasn’t the most affectionate guy—okay he barely spoke to me, not that he had time—but he was there for me. I loved him. I was still sobbing as I leaned down to put the shades on his face (I need to make sure they bury him with those. His damned gloves too), resting my face in his cold, waved hair for a moment before turning around.   
“Yeah, that’s him. Dirk Strider.” I said as I walk out, giving them the full name that no one knew. I passed through the doors towards Bro’s—mine, now—rusty orange pick-up truck and didn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> The archive warnings may change for this! I'm not sure where exactly I'm going with this in the end.   
> Gomen uvu


End file.
